[powercx]

I'm curious how your history started with the Blackberry. Let it be for work and you got hooked since then and that's how you use Blackberry even for Personal use, or just because you are a blackberry user since you don't remember when.

My story is a funny one. I always thought Blackberry is for working people and I always thought the blackberry can't do anything except email. I thought email wasn't a big deal to get on a device. I personally have used and love a touch screen phone since 2000. O2 XDA Phone from Asia, to the latest in 2007, AT&T Tilt.

Then I got tired of the battery on the tilt lasting only 8 hours, not even a full day. The next best thing back in 2007 that has GPS was the Blackberry 8800. So I bought that instead, just to play around, planning to return it in 30 days. I setup email, and got a BB Messenger buddy from here. I ended up Beta Testing a GPS Tracking software from this forum for the 8800. I believe the program is called BB Tracker. I fell in love with it. My wife asked me if I'm going to return it and I said, nope, I'm going to keep it.

The thing that made me kept it and a user up to this point is that email was a big deal, since I have the Blackberry. The Blackberry Messenger and Yahoo Messenger was really really great. It's like a virtual leash, except when I'm bored, I can just chat away to my buddies.

So it all started as just a test blackberry, and end up loving it up to this point. Now my wife got the Curve, Red one, and she loves it too. Now I'm loving it even more since now it has 3G. I'm pretty sure I'm a BB User for life!

That's my story, what's yours?

[juwaack68]

Moved to General Forums since it's not specifically about the Bold.

[matthiasj]

i started with a Motorola MPX220 as my first smartphone and moved to a Blackberry because i thought the curve looked cool. I got a 8300 and a bluetooth GPS i really liked it and it messed up so i got a refurb 8310 and it has been a great phone

[rachamphetamine]

I had a handful of Motorola and LG phones, then switched to the Sidekick line in early 2006. I bounced from the Sidekick II to the Sidekick 3 in August 2007 and had it until March 08 when I bought my 8800. I also loved it, but alas, it didn't love me since it had some issues. I now have the 8320 Curve and I would not give it up for anything.. except maybe a Storm. We'll see.

[corey1022]

I was a hardcore treo 650 user on sprint. Then, Apple... made that famous announcement on January '07 for the first gen Iphone and me being a apple fanboy I switched to AT&T immediately and brought a Blackberry pearl to hold me over till the Iphone came out. I figured since I couldn't switch my Treo from Sprint to ATT, I would try a blackberry and see what all the rage was about (people with BB's seemed so addicted to them). I Brought a BB Pearl and started to feel the addiction of BB's...there was only one thing standing in the way of me fully falling in love with my new BB- predictive text on the pearl. Then on a warm day in May a coworker of mine came in with a new BB called the, "The Curve". I was like, "Wow this is like my Pearl but with out the annoying predictive text"! I traded in my Pearl a week later and obtained a Curve. After a day with a BB..with a full keyboard, I was a converted man! I was answering BBM's with the quickness and email...no problem! Then June 07 came and the first Iphone was released. I fell so in love with the Curve that I said "no", to the Iphone and kept it moving with the Curve. I love my curve so much that when I did give in and brought the Iphone 3g on July 11th-BUT! I still kept my Curve! I just use it for BBM and email now. Even though I have the "Jesus Phone 3g" my love affair with the BB is to strong to full give into the Iphone. So now I have the best of both worlds!

[tlhead]

well I'd seen BB around but I too thought they were for business people. 2 summers ago i was reading my Time magazine waitng for work to start and what awaits me on one of the first few pages of advertisements: The BB 8830 WE in all its dazzling glory. It caught my eye because sprint was running that "2. 5 million dollar island" or something similar ad and it looked really fancy lol. So i immediatley called in and ordered it and I retired my red sprint razor and I'v had that phone every since. Although yesterday i did place an order for the BB curve 8330 . I do believe that my current phone has become a tad bit troublesome because its hard to watch vids on it and one day like 2 months ago the screen went completely white so i then ordered the instinct last wednesday, recieved it thursday morning and called sprint by nightfall telling them to turn my BB back on and send me a box so i can send them back that phone they were calling a "smartphone" Then i went to the sprint site, saw the BB curve and knew that was going to be my new BB. My 2 previous phones were flip phones, now my BB 8830 and by the end of next week my curve. I dont think i can ever go back to a "normal" phone again. I love all the thins i can do on my phone! It also makes most people jealouslol. What will make my heart sing is the day sprint unveils a TOUCHSCREEN BB!! They better do it before my contract is up or I shall be forced to head to Verizon

[braambo]

I was a Symbian OS user (Nokia) until I got my Blackberry, I used to have a Nokia 6600, then the joystick went out on it, so I heard Blackberry was a up and going and decent smartphone, and has great sales, so I got one, I got my first blackberry September 29th, 2008...What a upgrade tho from Nokia 6600 to Blackberry Curve !! VGA vs 2MP...full kb... I was gonna go for a Nokia N75 from Nokia 6126 but N75 is slow...so I got my blackberry :D My first cell phone I had was a Motorola V551 from Cingular...few years ago, it wasn't a bad phone...Until Cingular turned ATT then everything messed up...now the Blackberry comes along with my t-mobile contract, but t-mobile hasn't been the best carrier I been with so I had to drop them, so I am with a locked tmob bb for now until I unlock it and mess around with it some more to see its potential...and that's why I'm here wit all you other Blackberry users/experts and n00bs alike

[kjjb0204]

Started when I got issued a bb at work about two years ago. Hooked ever since.

[ejmccartin]

I had a palm while I was in school to keep me on schedule and a dumb phone to keep in touch. after graduation I really wanted to combine devices and talking to the t-mo guy who was carrying a bb on his hip I bought the 7100t. that was five or six years ago and I was hooked immediately. I got the pearl when it came out. love, love, loved it. still, when my contract was up I thought I could break my addiction and tried to go with vzw and the dare. returned it after two weeks. (loved the coverage, hated the plan and the phone) I ran back to t-mo and my pearl. recently I upgraded to the curve. was instantly in love again with my phone. yeah! for wi-fi!

[tsac]

There is something called a cell phone? Never heard of it. I dont know anybody who has one !!! Only Blackberrys.

Oh I know, it's that big thing with a round dial with little holes for your fingers.

[powercx]

Wirelessly posted

Haha. Wow. Great stories. Thanks for sharing. I have one more person to convert to blackberry. He's still on windows mobile phone since I introduced him the windows mobile phone. Now it's hard for me to convert him unless if I accidentally switced phones. Haha. I would never trade for a windows mobile phone again.

[nchavez]

I originally got a 8700 to read my emails while I was away from work, but then I noticed all the things you can do with it. I switched to a Pearl, then an iphone (2 days seriously) and then the Curve. Can't say that I can ever see myself using anything different. The Blackberry user interface is so put together that even when I play with other phones that aren't Berries, I am like "well, my phone does this AND that"... So, in the end -- Berries for life!!!

[rambo47]

I was doing the Palm Pilot/flip cell phone combo, back in the day. I wanted something that converged these devices and found the Treo 600. It was revolutionary in it's day and performed quite well. I became a Treo devotee quickly and stayed that way for years.

Palm Pilot > Palm Vx > Treo 600 > Treo 650.

As the models progressed, Palm Treos started to see increased instability. It reached it's peak for me with the 650, and if you can't trust your phone to stay on, not frozen, and not to reset itself whenever it feels like it, then it's not much of a phone. So I began to look for something better.

Email had become a priority for me. I needed something better, but I was so used to the PIM + Phone in an all-in-one device like the Treo I was afraid to break from the Palm devices. I fooled around with custom ROMs, aftermarket email programs (built-in Versamail sucked balls), and some other things but it was obvious even to a Palm fanboy like me: the Palm Treo was dead.

I saw everyone in my corporate world using Blackberrys, busily typing away at emails and fielding calls, and decided to look into it. My first Blackberry was the 7230 from T-Mobile. It definitely took some getting used to! No touch screen was a big drawback for me initially, and the scroll wheel was an entirely new way of doing things. But the BB battery life and extreme stability kept me from running back to a Treo. Once I got used to doing things the Blackberry Way™ everything else was nonsense. I was hooked, and although I've had flirtations along the way with other platforms, Blackberry is home. I've tried and still like Nokia phones in some situations, especially the N-series devices. They still have a place with me. The camera on the N95 remains one of the best phone cams ever. Symbian S60 is an interesting platform, but falls short when it comes to messaging. And no QWERTY on any N-series dooms it to niche status with me. I've tried the E-series Nokias as well, and while they are business-grade, they're still not up to Blackberry standards for messaging.

My Blackberry history:
7230 > 7730 > 7105t > 8100 > 8300 > 8800 > 8820 > Bold.

Sentimental favorite. Perfect form factor, beautiful screen, 1st SureType keyboard, feels/looks great.

Best BB ever. Does it all, superb design, best keyboard I've ever used on any mobile device.

[coldconfession13]

Wirelessly posted

I had a cheap flip phone from tmobile. I was working at att hq when I first saw the blackberry pearl and got interested in it and luckily tmobile had it so I ended up upgrading . Eventually about close to a year later the curve came out on att and I wanted it so bad and I was cool with the IT guys at att and so they gave me an 8300 got it unlocked and had it used that for a good time. I just got this 8310 about two months ago or so and loving gps

[Superh3ro]

Wirelessly posted

Well I'm a fire fighter. I work for one of the oil companies in kuwait. I'm on a 12hrs shifts so I'm on standby for a really long time. After scheduled check lists and checking our tools we either go to the gym or have a game of volley or basketball. That takes maybe 4hrs, so I have to kill 8hrs more ( that is if I'm still on standby and no fire and I wud love to keep it that way) so I got me the blackberry


It does waste a lot of my time. Mostly in chatting with the outside world ( since I'm in a oil plant ) ad I upload movies and tv series.


So ya I can't go to work without my bb

[Xaneth]

What a great thread! Where to start? I've been a system administrator full time since 1999 and worked with computers professionally since 1996. I started working with my first full blown BES server at a job I held recently starting in early 2006. We had a fleet of 45 BB's, ranging from the 7520's to some 7130e models we had. I started out on a 7250, went to a 7130e, then to an 8703e, then to an 8800, to a Curve 8310 on AT&T and got my Bold here last week on the 5th.

Love the functionality and really love the power of the BES. Funny story that happened to me with my new 8703e, a week after I got it, I was out on break on a trail and lost it! Since it was a company phone, I figured "this is it, it's coming out of my check", but I went ahead and locked it from the BES and displayed a message across the screen that I'd lost it, and put my office number on it. Five minutes later I got a call that someone had found it! Glad they returned so I didn't have to brick it!

[Horizon Wireless]

My first device was a motorola dpc550. Took me a while to get a BB. I cant even think about the old days. My life has changed so much with it. I dont have to be tied to a desk to read emails all day.

[rambo47]

Originally Posted by Horizon Wireless

My first device was a motorola dpc550. Took me a while to get a BB. I cant even think about the old days. My life has changed so much with it. I dont have to be tied to a desk to read emails all day.

That was my first phone too. Quite a step up from the old pager/pay phone combo.

[yellowdragon]

My first smartphone was a Cingular 8120 which I got with a MMS/SMS and limited data plan. It was fun to use but sometimes it became S-L-O-W. Then got a 8525 which was faster and I was happy with it.

A friend of mine is in charge of exchanging phones to the salespeople at her office. She had a few old, scratched AT&T 8820's lying around and I asked her for one to see why people were getting 'addicted' to them. Well, I loved the keyboard and the email... Then installed Google Maps, a few chat programs and with the help of this forum, updated the OS to 4.5 and made it into a little multimedia machine for entertainment while commuting...

After a month I sold the 81 and the 85 and got a brand new Curve with unlimited data...

BTW, never discovered why people got addicted to the BB's... Only can say that now I'm hooked too!

[powercx]

I had those phone before my Blackberry. The 8125, 8525, 8925. I'm tired of the touch screen and the battery hogging device. It gets buggy after awhile, and I have to format to a clean slate. Sometimes it resets on it's own and I won't get a call or miss a call/sms.

Such a useless phone. I would never go back to Windows Mobile Phones. Having one of those is like having Windows Operating System. But with phones, there are better ones.